New Tongue Smell
by Trisa Slyne
Summary: The Triwizard Tournament may be coming soon, but Fred and George are busy concocting new potions and they need someone to try out their latest translation potion. Who can they trick into testing it? Set on the first day of Harry's Fourth Year of school at Hogwarts.
1. Prequel

******Author's Note: I don't own Harry Potter, kk cool.**

**New Tongue Smell**

**Prequel**

Breakfast on the first day of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardy was always exciting, but today it was especially exciting. Dumbledore had announced the Triwizard Tournament at the welcoming feast the night before. The normal group of owls flew in the Great Hall carrying care packages stuffed with things students had left at home. But many of them were immediately sent back home with excited letters from students. Some had sent letters the night before, but most had waited until this morning to write.

But two red-headed fifth years didn't seem as impressed. They approached the Gryffindor table whispering to one another and sitting apart from the others so they could continue their discussion.

Fred heaped a little of everything onto his plate, fried tomatoes, bacon, sausage patties, toast and marmalade, and a bowl of porridge with cream and treacle spooned and mixed in. "I'm just saying.."

"I'm just saying, it's _your_ turn to try this one," George stated firmly. He was more selective in what he put on his plate, fried tomatoes, sausages, and toast with marmalade poured on top.

Fred took a bite of bacon and pointed the rest of the piece at George. "No way, that invisibility potion just wore off this morning," he said.

"Well I just got over that fever those chews gave me. It lasted way longer than they it was supposed to," George said, taking a bite of toast.

Fred laughed. "You should've seen the looks people were giving you, mate. You were a right sight: feverish and talking to the air. Everyone thought you were a loon." He laughed again.

"Well Angelina thought you were off with some girl," George said, rolling his eyes and spearing a piece of fried tomato on his fork. "I'm surprised she was talking to you at all. Where did you go last night? I spent quite a long time talking to your empty bed before I realized you weren't there at all."

Fred smirked and leaned back, tossing the rest of his bacon piece in his mouth. "Ah well, invisibility has its perks," he said, once he'd finished chewing. He waggled his eyebrows at his brother. "Angelina and I made up- and out- last night… all night long."

George's eyebrows shot up and he put his forkful of tomato down. "What? No. No way. You snuck into the girl's room? _Without me?_ How? That anti-boy spell caught you this morning!"

"You fly up!" Fred said, his smile reaching from ear to ear. "Angelina made sure the coast was clear then helped me fly up on her broom after the other girls were asleep." He cackled. "Luckily the invisibility spell didn't wear off until morning so when I left I just pretended I had been coming up to visit then." Fred leaned back with a smug smile on his face. "We have a date tonight. Which is why I can't be speaking gibberish all day."

"All day, it's only supposed to last an hour," George argued. Then he relented. "Then again so were the fever chews." He paused to think. "But hey, it might be sexy. The girls love a man with an accent."

"Would be sexier if I could turn it on and off at will," Fred said. "We should look into that."

"Yes, yes," said George. "But first we need to make sure it works first and will incorporate all the languages we want. Then we can select different languages for different pills."

Fred leaned back and munched on his food thoughtfully. "You know what, George? I think it's time we got ourselves pets." He stared pointedly over George's shoulder.

George raised his eyebrows. They had never bothered with pets. Too much responsibility. He turned to follow his brother's line of sight. Ron, Harry, and Hermione were sitting further down the table eating. "Guinea pigs?" he asked.

"Precisely," Fred said.


	2. Humiliation

**Chapter 1: Humiliation**

Harry and Hermoine sat at the Gryffindor table in the Great Hall, calmly eating their breakfast while between them Ron sat, furiously scribbling on a piece of parchment.

"Honestly, Ron, how do you manage to be behind before classes have even started?" Hermione asked. "You had all summer to do this."

"I was busy _living_, Hermione, _living_," Ron groaned. "I know _you'd_ like nothing more than to read and do homework all summer, but us _normal_ people enjoy doing other things."

Hermione's eyes narrowed. "I have hobbies," she insisted. Ron snorted. Hermione looked to Harry for support. His eyes widened and he struggled for an appropriate response.

"Like what?" Harry asked, lamely.

Hermione pushed her lips together in a thin line. "Knitting," she said.

"Knitting?" Ron burst into laughter. "You mean like what little old ladies and women like my mum do?"

Hermione's cheeks colored and she stood up suddenly.

"I think it's… interesting?" Harry tried, lamely.

She opened her mouth to say something, but Ron burst out with "Knitting!" and then dissolved into another round of laughing. She closed her mouth firmly, gathered her things, and left.

"I think you hurt her feelings," Harry informed Ron.

"She'll get over it," Ron said, going back to his homework.

"Yeah, well, we're on our own with our homework until she does. Of course, you could apologize and then she'd help us again."

"Apologize for what?" Ron asked, irritably, "It's not my fault she has a stupid hobby. You and I have perfectly respectable hobbies- Quidditch."

Harry could not argue with that. But Hermione could hold a grudge for a while and Ron could be stubborn. He hoped they would at least still talk to each other. He sighed and looked around the Great Hall. A large package caught his eye.

"I wonder who that package is for," Harry said absentmindedly. He was staring at what appeared to be a large box flying by itself. It veered haphazardly across the room, coming closer and closer… to him. It suddenly landed with a THUMP right in front of him, clattering the dishes all around and splattering some nearby students with food.

"Ahh!" screamed Ron as porridge flew all over his page. A feathery little ball had landed right in Harry's porridge bowl, splattering what was left of his porridge all over his robes and Ron's paper. Ron lifted his parchment up and made a face as the porridge slid off the paper. Harry examined his bowl and found a tiny pygmy owl laying in it, not moving except for the heaving of its chest. He picked the poor thing up and set it down on a napkin.

Harry sighed and pulled out his wand to clean himself up, thankful he was finally back at school and could do so again so easily. He cleaned the owl off, as well, and stroked it on the head. He vaguely wondered how to tell the gender of an owl. He had been informed that Hedgwig was a girl, so he had never needed to know how to check before. But it wasn't important.

"Blimey," Ron said. "Who sent you such a large package?"

"I dunno," Harry said, looking at the name on the box. "It's not for me," he said, looking around. Harry looked at the poor fluffball and could not imagine how it had managed to carry such a large, heavy box by itself. He examined the box more closely and found a loop of string lying against the side of it. Apparently someone had attached string to holes on each side of the top of the box in order to give the poor owl something to hold onto since it was too large to carry in the talons like a normal package.

"Is it for me?" Ron asked, already reaching out for it.

"I-it's mine," squeaked a voice. Ron and Harry looked at one another then looked around. They could not see anyone around them. Finally Harry stood up and looked over the package. A first year was sitting on the other side of the table. Harry was so used to ignoring everyone around him that he had not even noticed her there. She had very dark skin and short black hair. Harry noted she, like most other first-years seemed extremely small to him. He swore he had never been quite that tiny.

"Well you won the jackpot, didn't you?" Ron said. "Go on, open it! Let's see what your Mum and Dad sent you."

The girl's eyes suddenly darted to Harry's forehead and she opened her mouth to speak.

"Yes, yes, that's Harry Potter," Ron butted in before she could say anything. "I'm Ron Weasley. What, haven't heard of me? Strange. I'm loads more famous than he is." He tapped her package. "C'mon c'mon open it. I'm dying to see what's inside."

The girl gave one awed look at Harry before looking at Ron and blushing. Ron noticed this and suddenly sat up straighter. Harry rolled his eyes. The girl stood up and stared uncertainly at the box.

Ron stood up as well, his homework quickly forgotten. He stared at the package, his eyebrows furrowing together. "What's all this on here?" he asked.

Harry's eyes widened as he noticed the thick layer of tape covering the entire top of the box. Clearly her parents had wanted to make sure the package was secure. "It's called tape," he told Ron. "It's a muggle invention to keep packages closed." He looked at the girl. "Are your parents muggles?"

"My mum is," she answered, shyly. "My father's a wizard but he travels a lot, so mum knows how to use owls…" she gestured helplessly at the package. "But I need scissors to open it…"

"How 'bout a knife?" Ron offered, holding a dull butterknife out to her.

She blushed and took the knife. "It might work," she said uncertainly. She grasped the butterknife in her hand and poked the box with it. Ron's hand twitched as if he wanted to take the knife from her and stab the box. A few minutes passed before Ron turned to Harry.

"Do you think alohomora would work?" he asked.

Harry shrugged. Ron discreetly pulled out his wand and tapped the box on the side, reciting the incantation under his breath. Ron smiled as the lid burst open, but his smile froze as the contents of the package proceeded to burst forth from the box in a steady stream of pastel colors. They all stood horrified as bits of clothes started falling on people around them. To everyone's horror or amusement it soon became apparent what most of the clothes in the box were: knickers and bras.

The entire Great Hall hushed and then bursts of laughter or disgust began filtering in.

"Granny panties? Who still wears these?" one female student said snarkily.

"I guess I don't need to do any panty-raids now," a male voice hooted.

McGonagall's voice soon boomed over theirs, "Anyone who tries to keep those clothes which are not theirs will receive detention. And anyone who makes anymore remarks will lose points for their house." Everyone turned to see McGonagall standing up, her wand pointed at her throat to enhance the sound. "Please bring me the clothes in question and continue on with your lunch."

A pair of knickers landed on Ron's face. He spluttered and knocked them off, his face turning an even deeper shade of red. He turned to apologize to the girl but right as he opened his mouth she suddenly stood up and fled the Great Hall.

McGonagall brought over an armful of clothes and deposited them into the box. "Just what is going on here?" she demanded to know.

Ron gaped. His eyes darted from his unfinished homework to McGonagall. Harry sighed and said, "It was my fault professor." Ron turned his eyes on Harry but Harry looked from Ron to Ron's homework pointedly. "I was trying to help her open her package and well, used magic. It kind of backfired…"

"I should say so," McGonagall said. "10 points from Gryffindor. Potter, you know better than to use magic outside of classes. Now come along, we are going to return Ms. Wayne's possessions and you are going to apologize to her. And I'll be seeing you in detention tonight."

"Yes, Professor," Harry said solemnly.

Ron sat down, his mind buzzing. He appreciated Harry taking the fall for him. He glanced at his homework, wondering how he would be able to focus now.

"Smooth," one of his brother's said as he took a seat on Ron's right where Harry had been sitting.

"Yeah, we always said you were the smoothest with the ladies!" chirruped Fred, taking Hermione's seat to Ron's left.

"What do you want?" Ron said, glancing at the two of them. "I'm a little busy, can't you see?" he pointed at his homework?

"What we saw," George began, "Was you mucking things up and letting Harry take the fall."

Ron pointedly picked up his quill and resuming his homework.

"Pretty smarmy of you, if you ask me," Fred said, grabbing an unused goblet and examining its contents. He used an unused fork to spear a sausage and happily munched on it.

"It was an accident!" Ron said, harassed. He looked up to grab his drink, not wanting to knock it over on his parchment, and noticed George quickly retracting his hand from near it.

"Hey, did you do something to my drink?" he demanded to know, grabbing the cup and looking into it. He glanced at George.

George shrugged but smiled. "You're paranoid, mate."

"It's not paranoia when it's you two, it's being smart. Especially lately…" Ron retorted. Fred stuffed a piece of omelet in his mouth and reached for his drink. Ron snatched his goblet before he could get to it and downed it.

"What'd you do that for?" Fred said, put out. Ron ignored him and went back to work. George rolled his eyes.

"Hey that looks good, whatchu eating?" George asked.

Ron lifted his arms up in the air in an annoyed gesture. "Any bloke can see it's un omelette du fromage," he said irritably. He lowered his arms and went back to writing, but he hesitated, his eyebrows furrowing. "Omelette du fromage?" he repeated. "Omelette du fromage!" he exclaimed.

"Well, it works," Fred said, putting down his silverware and patting his full stomach.

"But for how long?" George pondered out loud. Ron's eyes widened. Could his morning get any worse?


End file.
